PrinceAlexus
Izurich
Drifting Pollen
Rezod92
Lexisheeps
xxjessicaxx
Timemaster
Eviledd1984
pkken
The Koopa Troop
wordcount: 2,608 (3+)
Bowser: Level 4 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////// (23/40)
Bowser Jr: Level 1 EXP: //////////// (8/10)
Kamek: Level 1 EXP: /////////// (3/10)
Location: Peach’s Castle
Bowser found himself back in the foyer, having been kicked out of the kitchen by the tiny angry chef lady. Technically he’d excused himself to go look for his son as per her suggestion, but mainly he’d just wanted to get away from the fiery eyed cook without admitting that she’d scared the bejesus out of him. Still, she did have a point. Jr was probably somewhere in here if his doppelganger words had held any truth and Kamek was also around according to Geno.
Fortunately he did not have to look far for them as fate decided to contrive a reunion right there and then. Kamek, Bowser’s chief magikoopa, adviser and foster father all in one, showed up just moments later as he exited the dungeon now found beneath the castle. The old magi-koopa looked rather confused at having found himself in peach’s castle, but perked up visibly at the sight of his King/son.
“KAMEK! There you are!” Bower said as his loyal servant hurried over to bow before him ”Sire! I’m at your service, though I’m afraid to admit I’m not to sure what is going on. I came to in my laboratory that was filled with a mess of useless junk. Then after i cleaned up I found that the lab was in a dungeon that's also under peach’s castle. I have no idea how it got there. Did we move here recently? I fear my age is catching up with me.” Kamek looked rather worried, as was to be expected of someone who thought they might be suffering from the onset of dementia.
“No, no. your fine. The whole memory fuzziness your getting is pretty normal” Bowser partially explained
Before Kamek could ask for clarification however Bowser spotted someone very important coming down the stairs while carrying a map and looking rather disgruntled.
“Jr!” Bowser shouted jubilantly at the sight of his son, giving the boy a far more emotional reunion than he had his adoptive father as he stomped over, picked Jr up and hugged him against his shoulder. Jr for his part was a little surprised by the intensity of the greeting, but got into it regardless, hugging the king back and accompanying the embrace with a a jubilant ”Papa!”
The embrace lasted only a few moments before Bowser put his son done again, telling him that “I’m so glad your ok!”
”Uh, you too?” Jr said just a little confused by the implication that he had been in danger before adding ”Did I miss a lot after the army of hands fight? My memories a bit fuzzy after that.”
”Please Sire, it would be very helpful if you filled us in as to what is going on.” Kamek said to Bowser after he caught up, adding his weight to the princes’ question in a hope to get it answered.
“Oh right. Plot summary time. So while we were attacking the mushroom kingdom we got interrupted by this call to go fight an army of master hands. Smash-bros business. Always weird.” Bowser began explaining
”Dad I know this already” Jr butted in
“Yeah but Kamek doesn't. I’ll get to the new stuff soon. So turns out there's loads of hands and they were controlled by a big winged orb thing called Galeem and… you remember how I told you about that blue guy with the wings that controlled the master hand last time? Tattoo or something?”
”Tabuu was it not? He stole parts of the world using subspace bombs and stuck them together into a great maze. Has this Galeem done the same?” Kamek said, remembering the debriefing he had had the king give when he had gotten back fro that particular endeavor. He’d had to go do a lot of follow up research afterwards because the king’s storytelling ability was rather lacking.
“Kinda? But they’ve done the same thing thing using everything ever, blasting it all and then sticking it all back together however they want. Galeem’s also taken over the minds of everyone ever. Makes them more aggressive mostly, but they're also perosnaly empower or controlling a few. They've got these 13 bosses stopping us from just going over and smashing them right away coz their powering some magic shield or something. So I’ve gotten this slap dash army of, bleh, heros working for me to take them all down. We already beat up some doppelganger of me to free this place, and you, of Galeem’s power, so now we only gotta take down 12 more. Then we can kick Galeem’s butt, put everything back to where it belongs, and then finally we can go home and get back to business as usual.”
”I see. This is all is most concerning. Thank you for this explanation sire. May I ask who told you all this?” Kamek asked, sussing out immediately that the king would have never done the research or investigation necessary to figure out some of these details
“Some Guy called the Master of Masters. Wears a black leather robe and you cant see his face. Carries a massive key. Never shuts up. You can't miss him.”
”That’s such a dumb name. Who does this ‘Master’ guy think he is?” Jr said. He’d sat down on the stairs and zoned out for a lot of the explanation until hearing the Master’s name. Everyone nodded, agreeing it was a pretentious name. Only one of them actually knew the word pretentious however.
”I’ll keep an eye out for this ‘Master’ then. Do you know where these other 12 bosses are Sire?” Kamek asked.
“Nope! No idea where anything is in this mixed up place.” The king admitted.
”Hey dad? Maybe this will help?” Jr said, pulling the map out from under his arm and passing it to Bowser. The Koopa king unrolled it and then squinted at the tiny (compared to him) piece of parchment. “Hmmm. Yeah I can’t read this. Kamek, deal with it.” he said, tossing it over to the magi-koopa, who unfurled it and began to study it.
“I got some other things to explain anyway. Also gifts!” Jr, who had been a touch dejected by his father's reaction to the map perked up visibly at the mention of gifts “These are sprites” he explained, retrieving the jar containing the two bloopers from his pockets “You can crush them to get items and weapons, or absorb them to get power, knowledge or to use them as minions. Here, try squeezing these and see what you get.” he said, tipping the two sprites into the princes waiting hands. As Jr eagerly crushed the two bloopers Kamek, who had paid more attention to this explanation than the map, noticed the rest of the contents of Bowser’s pockets, namely the numerous Koopa and Goomba Sprites.
”Sire are those...?” he asked with concern
“Ah. Yeah. Galeem makes people super aggressive. They attacked so I, you know… I’m glad beating the faker freed you guys. I found out later you can also free people using 'friend hearts' which I would have done for you, though you need to weaken people before you use those. Still, even these sprites aren't gone for good, you can do this” Bowser snapped his fingers and caused Sledge, Mallet and Heel to appear before him. The trio bowed, Heel with far less sincerity than his comrades. “Can’t bring that many of them back, but a few can be used as these ‘Strikers’” he explained, before ordering them to “ go collect your stuff while your out!”
As the trio scampered away Bowser plucked a Goomba sprite out of his pocket and turned to his son “Jr! Catch this one and try and turn this into a ‘striker’ like those three. Just order them to appear and they’ll obey you.”
Jr caught the Goomba sprite and looked at a little disappointed ”Just one Goomba?” he asked
“Yeah I know, but that's how it works apparently. I mean the hammer bros came in a pair but…” Bowser began but Jr had mostly ignored this explanation and had instead run up to his father's side. There they jumped up to the pocket containing the Goombas and yelled at them ”Hey you lazy Goombas! Quit free loading my dads pockets and get out here!”
Much to everyone's surprise this worked, the minions’ sprites surging out of the pocket and into Jr. ”Wow, wow, wow!” Jr cried in shock, his arms spinning, before falling down to the floor.
“Jr!” ”Young master!” his father and grandfather cried, concerned for the boy’s safety. Jr for his part shook his head for a moment to clear it and then snapped his fingers like his father had while calling out ”Goomba Swarm, Chain Chomp formation!” causing an absolute tone of Goombas to appear before him in the same manner that strikers did. The stunty monsters looked a little confused for a moment before they all bowed before the royal family.
“Ha Ha! That's my boy! Breaking all the rules like a proper villain” Bowser congratulated Jr, before telling him: “Now do the same with the Koopas.”
A few moments and dozens of sprites later the Goombas where joined by an equally large band of Koopas. All where arrayed before Jr and his proud father. “Great work Jr. now, three more things, First, Strikes can be de-summoned in the same way as they’re summoned.” he explained and then paused to let Jr try it.
”Koopa troop! Goomba Swarm. Dismissed!” Jr ordered, causing the minion army to poof back into sprite form and zoom back to him.
“Good. Secondly they have a limited summoning time, so only bring them out when you know you need to use them. Finally, strikers can't die, they can only be forcibly un-summoned. if their time's up or they die you have to wait a bit before you can use them again.” Bower said, finishing his explanation.
”Got it Papa.” ”Very good Sire.” his subordinates/family responded.
“Now. That more than enough tutorializing for one day. Peach is making dinner for everyone and I am starving. They must be nearly done in the kitchen by now.” Bowser said, before turning and making his way back to the place he had just been kicked out of.
“HAY. YEAH DON’T WORRY WE’RE JUST GOING OVER THERE” Bowser said as he pointed over to the dining table to head off any mama rage. He shuffled over to the mostly empty part of the room, followed by Kamek and Jr after shot their mandatory antagonistic glares at Mario.
They all found seats apart from Kamek, who now had finally taken time to inspect the map now that the sprite explanation was over.
”This is an excellent find young master.” he told Jr as he read it.
”Yeah it is!” Jr espoused before glanced over at Peach. ”I saved it from Peaches room. Some kid in a hat was making a mess up there, but I chased her off and got the map she was trying to steal first. Then I, uh, held onto it for safekeeping.” he said, shunting the blame for the mess he’d made onto the hat-girl that had ignored him. No one in the koopa clan called him out on this bluff.
”Sire let me show you this at a more you-appropriate scale” Kamek said, before before waving his wand at the map. A brief burst of magic took hold, causing the map to expand many times over in size so that it ended up needing to be leaned against the dining room wall of the Kitchen. He ensured it was well clear of any fire hazards and visible to anyone else who might join them at the table.
”So.” Kamek said, who mounted his broom and then flew up to hover next to the map so he could point things out as he spoke of them ”You said there were 13 bosses correct Sire? Well there are 14 named locations on this map. So it is probably safe to say that each one has a boss in them, baring one. Have you been to any of these places yet sire? Other than the castle of course.”
“Yeah. The 1-1 place down there. Yeesh. It's pretty titchy looking on the map and it took us hours to walk and fight through all that. This is going to take a while.” Bowser explained and complained simultaneously.
”and no Boss’s were encountered there?” Kamek asked
Bowser shook his head “Just a mini boss. Not the same power level as the fake me.”
”Excellent. Then that's one boss per named location other than 1-1. Hopefully inside notable landmarks on the map like this temple” Kameck indicated to the structure in the Sand Swept Desert ”or this castle” he indicated to the large structure at the north of the Swordlands.
“All right.” Bowser said, not quite following why he was being told this.
”So we have destinations, now all we need to do is chart a course too them.” Kamek explained.
“Which is going to take forever” Bowser groaned
”We’ll figure something out. Maybe we can get ships from the Edge of the Blue?” he suggested, pointing at what might be a port found just beyond the dark forest ”It also means that once you’ve beat the boss of a zone we more or less know that we can ignore any unexplored parts of a region, at least when it comes to our primary objective, which should save us a lot of time.”
Meanwhile the King’s sprites had also returned, lugging the various equipment they had dropped earlier through the kitchen. Sledge and Heel dumped the mostly empty minigun and Slice Cutter in a corner, along with the deceased Zer0’s Synapse and then disappeared, but Mallet remained for a few moments longer.
While Kamek and Bowser went over the map Mallet approached Bowser Jr and presented the Necro smasher to him, saying “Prince Bowser Jr, I think you might like this?”
”A wooden mallet? Really? At least give me one of your metal ones!” Jr complained, looking at the wooden hammer with disdain.
“Ah, but your scariness, I believe it can repair damaged machines just by hitting them, as well as acting as a weapon. You being so fond of of them I thought…” he explain before the mallet was snatched from his hands while he was still speaking.
”Why didn’t you say so in the first place!” Jr admonished the unfortunate hammer bro, while doing a few practice swings. ”Shame I don't have anything to use it on, like a cool mech” he complained
“Well. There is a whole junk yard outside… maybe there's something out there?” Mallet suggested..
”Junkyard. Yeesh. What's kinda junk is in it?” Bowser Jr asked
“Karts mainly” Malet admitted. Jr was not really impressed.
Kamek however seemed interested enough to interjected himself into this conversation. ”Karts did you say? Racing Karts?”
“Yeah there’s a loaded of them all stacked up. Would be real useful if they worked now that I think about it. Stop us having to trudge through all of that.” Bowser said, vaguely waving at the blown up map.
”Then I’m gonna go and fix those karts!” Jr announced. When he attempted to run off to do just that however he was by his father.
“Hang on hang on. First off there's Angry robots and Raving Rabbids out there so it’s dangerous to go running out there alone. Second of all dinner’s almost done. Eat first,adventure and tinkering second. ok?” he said in a fatherly tone
”Yes papa” Jr said disappointingly
“Good lad.” Bowser said, gently ruffling the boy’s hair, before turning his attention to the hero's hanging around the room and pointing at the map. “YOU LOT. WE’RE GOING TO FIX UP SOME RIDES SO WE CAN TRAVEL THROUGH ALL THAT FASTER! SO EAT UP AND THEN GEAR UP FOR SOME BACKTRACKING.”
Mallet proofed himself just a few moments later while Kamek landed and put aside his broom so he could take a seat at the table. He left the map scaled up however, meaning it was still available for inspection by the others.
